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Friday, June 9, 2017

A Limited Engagement

When bad boy race car driver and team owner, Derek, needs a fake fiancee, he turns to his best childhood friend, Lilly, to play the part. Since Lilly just lost her career and her finance in one awful day, she certainly has the time. But what Derek doesn't know is that Lilly has had a killer crush on him since they were kids. In the scene below, Derek proves to Lilly that they are totally believable as a couple...and that getting even with Lilly's ex is just too much fun to resist.

***

“Is that the guy?” Derek asked in a low whisper, leaning across the table. “He works fast. Y’all broke up, what, last week?”

Her eyes darted to Derek’s face, so close to hers. Crap. He knew. “What did Shana tell you?”

“Only that you had been messing around with your boss and that’s why you had to leave.” He sat back. “Oh, and something about a beat-down with a telephone.”

She groaned. “It wasn’t that sordid. We were a couple. It was a relationship with long-term potential.” Or so she’d thought. “And it was only the handset, not the whole phone. My hands were a little sweaty and it slipped out of—never mind. Shana wasn’t supposed to tell you.”

“She swore me to secrecy.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re not in the CIA.”

His eyes narrowed. Something sparked in them. He swallowed—again with that uncharacteristic nervous tic—and then smiled. “How about I make it up to you?”

“How? Got a three-hole-punch in your wallet you don’t mind me throwing at his face?”

“I left my office supplies in my other pants, but I’ve got a better idea.” That million-dollar grin spread from ear to ear. “We’ll make him jealous.”

Her gaze slid to Richard and the way he was looking at his date. “I’m not sure that’s going to work. He seems pretty wrapped up in his lunch date’s breasts.”

“Trust me. It’ll work. You’re a beautiful, intelligent, accomplished woman, and he’ll spend the rest of his life kicking himself for letting you get away.”

“Yeah, right.” There was a twinkle in his eye, but Lilly didn’t get the sense he was out-and-out mocking her. And the thought of revenge wastempting. Revenge that didn’t end in security escorting her out of the building was even better.

“What did you have in mind?”

He took her hand across the table and looked deep into her eyes as if she were the most beautiful thing he’d seen in forever, instead of his little sister’s best friend and the perpetual pain in his side growing up. “Just follow my lead. Act like we’re gearing up for a nooner and are totally into each other.”

His hands were large and warm, and the way he was looking at her, even if it was an act, made her squirm in her chair. As a lovesick teen, she’d spent hours imagining what it would be like having him look at her like this. It was everything she thought it would be, and maybe a little more. Only she wasn’t a teen any more. So pathetic. Now she knew a fantasy was just a fantasy.

“A nooner? Seriously?” She sneaked a peek at Richard and caught him staring at her, unblinking, like the giant snake he was. The woman turned to follow his gaze—and Lilly recognized her as the busty receptionist at RSG she’d always had a feeling hated her. Now she knew why.

Derek dropped her hand and scooted his chair out, about to get up. “Or I could just walk over there and punch him in his ugly cheating face.”

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